"Dave Itzkoff takes us on an extraordinary journey, and in the process reveals Chayefsky's prognosis for TV, a prognosis we've chosen to ignore even as it's come true before our eyes."-Forbes"I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!" Those words, spoken by an unhinged anchorman named Howard Beale, "the mad prophet of the airwaves," took America by storm in 1976, when Network became a sensation. With a superb cast (including Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall) directed by Sidney Lumet, the film won four Oscars and indelibly shaped how we think about corporate and media power. In Mad As Hell, Dave Itzkoff of The New York Times recounts the surprising and dramatic story of how Network made it to the screen, and of Paddy Chayefsky, the tough, driven, Oscar-winning screenwriter who envisioned a world-outlandish for its time-that is all too real today. Itzkoff vividly re-creates the action behind the camera at a time of swirling cultural turmoil. The result is a riveting account that enriches our appreciation of this prophetic and still-startling film.

Prologue 11 The Imposter 72 Strangelove-y as Hell 363 A Great Deal of Bullshit 694 The Daily Parade of Lunacies 985 A Storm of Humanity 1466 Primal Forces and Phantasmagoria 1737 Corrupt and Lunatic Energies 1948 It's All Going to Happen 224Notes 245Acknowledgments 271Index 275